Executive summary

This report comprehensively evaluates strategic management aspect of Bank of Ceylon (BOC). The key objective of this report is to advice the board of directors of BOC on company’s future strategic direction. This report mainly focuses on five tasks. In task 01, the report will evaluate the strategic direction of recent past and how the strategic thinking has developed within past five years. Further, this report will analyze internal and external environment of BOC using various management tools. Task 02 will focus on industry analysis via a strategic analysis, bank’s competitive advantage among its direct competitors and industry scenarios. Task 03 will evaluate current vision and mission statement and whether it is aligned to the current market condition. Further, this part of the report will evaluate the strategic capabilities of the bank. In task 04, it will discuss possible strategies which bank could follow to defend its core business and make recommendations for future strategic direction. Task 05 will analyze and evaluate the resource implication for proposed recommendations.
This report highlights four key aspirations which BOC need to achieve and maintain in long term. Those four aspirations are provide excellence customer service, retaining market leadership, leading the digital adoption and be the best in sustainable banking. To achieve these aspirations, BOC need to excel four strategic enablers which are customer centricity, building high performance team, digital excellence and rewarding credit culture while maintaining healthy credit portfolio.

Introduction

Strategic management is one of the mostly popular topics among different authors and many different concepts, theories and models have been developed regarding strategic management. According to CIMA official terminology (2007), Strategy can be defined as a course of actions, including the specification of resources required to achieve specific objectives (Diasz, 2017). Strategy focuses on methods of creating and sustaining superior performance of the organization.
BOC is a state owned leading commercial bank in Sri Lanka which has operated since 1939. At present, BOC is the largest commercial bank of Sri Lanka considering the number of customers, asset base, deposit base, loans and advances and earnings. BOC is considered as “Bankers to the Nation”. As a state owned bank, bank should assist to conduct government financial policies and it has inalienable responsibility to contribute to the socio-economic development of the nation by assisting the growth of individual, entrepreneurs and businesses. It is the utmost responsibility of board of directors to conduct this responsibility while assuring accountability and complying with financial regulations, best practices, measurements and values which financial institute should adhere. This report will assist higher management of BOC to fine-tune its strategic direction according to current dynamic business environment and new technological changes of banking sector.
Task 01

1.1 Company background

BOC is the market leader of the financial service market in Sri Lanka. With a strong employee proposition which includes 8479 employees, BOC is the largest cadre of financial institutes operate in Sri Lanka (BOC, 2021). Market share of BOC accounts 20% of financial market in Sri Lanka and in international banking services, BOC has 40% of market share (BOC, 2021). Bank offers a wide range of financial services such as commercial banking, development financing, trade finance, lease financing, mortgage financing, investment banking, government securities, foreign currency operation etc. Currently, it has wide range of products which cover different customer segments. Different products of BOC can be categorized as below.